Tsurezure Children
Tsuredure Children

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The anime adaptation of Tsurezure Children impressed me. Short and simple romantic gags, couples interacting with each others, and content that was both cute and giggly. Simple things such as these are often the ones that have the most to offer. At least when it comes to getting expressions out of its viewer.

This source material manga impressed me further. Rather lengthy series compared to the anime (3-4 times longer, to be exact), yet it kept its quality rather consistently and managed to offer enough new to keep interest despite its super simple settings.

Our story consist of nothing but several couples (there are over 30 main ... characters in the series, so there are a lot of them) hanging out. All we see are fractions of their daily life, who they are, what they do and in what way their partner affects them. Some develop their relationship quickly, others more awkwardly and in slower tempo.

Being a rom-com, the events typically center around the characteristics of our characters. These include stuff like boy teasing his tsundere girlfriend because there is no pleasing without teasing, but also because her behavior and embarrassment are comedic gold and heart warming love dovey at the same time.

While the former is just an example of one couple and their typical nichijou, or daily life if you prefer, similar details exist among other couples as well. Some of these are approached in the more "I need your support" type of way where self-conscious character needs to confidence boosts from their partner. One other couple simply tries to have some intimate time, but gets constantly interfered for whatever reasons.

While some of the couples are more interesting than others, I found most of them to add at least something to the overall humor and cuteness. Tsun tsun, osu (karate girl) and teasing master obviously the most. Still, as these romances are practically standalone tales, quality differences are obvious. Especially the teacher x student romance I found to be so terribad that I skipped thru most of it. The good thing is that doing this is possible and doesn't really lessen the reading experience in any way. Skipping those parts that the reader doesn't care about is easy and can only make the reading experience more pleasant as following every single romance line is not a necessity.

The art is light and simple, like in most 4-koma. The anime gave the character design glory there where it is rather mediocre in the manga. The art doesn't really stand out. One could argue that the series doesn't really try to stand out, but it surely would add to the reading experience if the art wasn't so consistently mediocre. The art mainly consists of simplistic characters being on the evenly sized 4 panels every single time, and rarely are there any background art present at all.

As a conclusion: those who came here to look cute and haato waamingu rom-com, will find the exact thing, and with quite high chance, I'd say end up enjoying what they get. Personally, I found this to be all the things mentioned, and also laughed out loud several times. Most of the time, I also found myself smiling when reading my favorite story lines.

Think of your first romance anime. Or your first romance manga—anything of the sort. Then throw it all away.

Cliches are a recurrent element in stories—and the thing is, you will never be able to get rid of them. They are cliches for a reason, and their existence proves to be essential in composing a story. Most writers and enthusiasts of literature believe that there is no thing such as originality; everything exists from being based off of something, with just some modifications to make it stand out from the rest.

Of course, it is fairly common to see overused tropes in the like in a subculture ... as wealthy as the anime culture—which is the embodiment of Japanese animation and the counterpart to Western graphic novels we encounter today. Content creators are always expected to bring something fresh to the field, so as to not drown in the deep ocean riddled with gimmicks and twists to the usual elements of a story. It has become so that gimmicks are the only things that the norm, and people aren't expecting as much as a good story anymore.

But what if you go back to the basics?—keeping that heartwarming feeling and simplistic vibe of a typical romantic comedy?

Tsurezure Children originated as a web manga in Pixiv by an artist known as Wakabayashi Toshiya, and it consists of several short stories consisting of a boy and a girl—and the gradual buildup to their romances. It is filled with all your usual character archetypes; you have the couple that are too shy to admit their feelings to each other, you have the clingy childhood friend who is also part yandere, you have the senpai and the kouhai, the couple who feels that their love is unrequited—any of the sort, within several 4-koma strips that result in a form of plot progression or character development between them.

To be honest, Tsurezure Children is nothing new—but isn't trying to be one, either. The series works itself as a big tribute to the celebrated and most successful tropes in terms of characters, settings, and plot progression, placing them in true-to-life scenarios mixed with a prolonging and subtle twist mirroring that of misunderstandings—the defining trait of a romance manga.

From my perspective, Tsurezure Children is a reflection of the ideal high school life—moreso the high school that you always see as the typical setting in an anime or a manga. It stands as a reflection of my nostalgia from my early days of watching the rom-com slice-of-life stories you see on TV, gently pulling my heartstrings with moments that invoke positive and warm emotions.

Ah, the innocence of youth! This series would be an escapist work in its prime—celebrating on the joys of scenarios to dream of and characters to love with.

Think of your first romance anime. Or your first romance manga—anything of the sort. Then throw it all away.

And relive the experience all over again.

I can't believe this manga is as highly regarded as it is on here.

This manga was nearly the same for its whole 212.2 chapter run.

The story for each and every single pair is almost always about misunderstanding, being embarrased to reveal their own feelings and doubting themselves. That's it, nothing else. All of these issues could have been solved in around a dozen chapters at the most, but apparenlty people stop talking to each other literally the moment someone else interrupts them (which happens all the goddamn time in this manga).

The art is pretty poor as well, many of the characters look the same, the ... facial reaction shots look exactly the same on each character which make them look even more similar then they already are.

This is the kind of manga that's as wide as the ocean (chapter-wise) but as shallow as a puddle. None of the characters feel real, none of these relationships feel real. All in all it was a waste of time and I don't really know why I even kept going.

The characters, like I said, most of these characters are pretty similar, but I would be lying if I said they weren't enjoyable.

Some grew to be my favourites and I dreaded reading others chapters. However because all of these characters had more or less the same kind of story that they went through made this a moot point in the end anyway.

The longer I read, the more I started hating all these "characters".

Would definitly not recommend, unless all you want to read is the same stuff just told with different characters for 212 chapters.